MEXICO CITY – A professionally employed man in Mexico is reportedly facing charges in at least seven homicide cases, one of which is tied to a family residing in Santa Ana, California.
Miguel Cortez, a 39-year-old pharmaceutical chemist, is in custody in Mexico City. He is being referred to by some as the “Mexican Jeffrey Dahmer,” FOX 11 Los Angeles reported.
Dahmer was a serial killer and sex offender from Milwaukee. He killed and dismembered seventeen males between 1978 and 1991. Many of his later murders involved necrophilia, cannibalism, and the permanent preservation of body parts—typically all or part of the skeleton. He was beaten to death by a fellow inmate in a Wisconsin prison in 1994.
Angela Calles, of Santa Ana, is the sister of one of Cortez’s victims. She said the chemist is “a monster, he’s a monster.”
Calles is currently in Mexico City because her niece, Maria Jose Castillo, 17, was raped and murdered. Moreover, the teen’s mother, who is Calles’s sister, is fighting for her life in a hospital after suffering multiple stabs wounds by the accused killer.
On April 16, Calles’s sister had been running errands when Cortez — a neighbor — reportedly attacked the woman’s daughter.
“She found this guy in my niece’s room, and she was already dead. He attacked my sister too. She has a stab wound on her leg, neck, left lung, and pelvic area,” Calles said.
Although Cortez tried to flee the scene, nearby residents swooped in and held him down until law enforcement authorities arrived.
While conducting a follow-up investigation, police checked Cortez’s apartment. During a search they made a grisly discovery: human remains and seven human craniums, according to Fox 11.
“They found out he was a serial killer,” Calles said.
Mexico City Prosecutor Ulises Lara said he has seven homicide cases stacked up against Cortez.
However, several mothers of missing daughters believe the number is much higher, and have been frustrated with authorities for not investigating the cases.
Calles — who is herself battling stage 4 cancer — has to continue commuting back and forth from Santa Ana to Mexico City to be with her sister, who remains hospitalized in ICU.
